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Paul and Onesimus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2011

Erwin R. Goodenough
Erwin R. Goodenough
Affiliation:
Yale University.
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Extract

Recent investigations into the law of fugitives and suppliants in hellenistic Egypt, a law which was based upon the procedure of classic Greece and so was generally like hellenistic law throughout the east, have thrown much light upon the subject, and suggest a reconsideration of the case, of Onesimus and his relations with Paul and Philemon. According to the law of Athens a slave whose life was in danger might flee to an altar and claim sanctuary. The first altar available was frequently the hearth of some private family, with its associations of the family religion. If a refugee rushed into the house and claimed sanctuary, the householder was under legal obligations to give him protection, at least temporarily, while following one of two possible courses. Either he must reconcile the slave to going back to the master, probably by giving the wretch some assurance that the master's wrath was mollified, or, if the slave persisted in refusing to trust himself with the master, the householder was obliged to put the slave up for sale in the market, and pay to the slave's owner the price received. The latter alternative was fraught with serious possibilities for the slave, since in a sale of this kind the circumstances would prejudice prospective buyers against him, and he would probably be purchased only for the roughest sort of service, such as the galleys or the mines. Rather than face such an uncertainty the slave would certainly be glad to go back to the first master if there were any reasonable hope of clemency.

Type
Notes
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 1929 , pp. 181 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1929

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References

1 See especially Friedrich von Woess, Das Asylwesen Ägyptens in der Ptolemäerzeit und die spätere Entwickelung, Munich, 1923Google Scholar.

2 Lipsius, J. H., Das Attische Recht und Rechtsverfahren, Leipzig, 1905–1915, pp. 643Google Scholar, 128, n. 33.

3 Woess, p. 175.

4 Ibid., pp. 75 ff., 86 ff.

5 De Virtutibus, 124.

6 I comment on this law more at length in my forthcoming book, The Jurisprudence of the Jewish Courts in Egypt at the Time of the Early Roman Empire as described by Philo Judaeus.

7 It is traditional to identify the Onesimus of this letter with the Onesimus of Colossians 4, 9, “the faithful and beloved brother who is one of you.” In view of the commonness of the name this identification is not at all certain, and if it is rejected, all geographical data for the incident are lacking. In that case we could only say that since all the names of Philemon and his family are Greek, the Greek law would presumably have been the one by which they would have acted.

8 M. R. Vincent, International Critical Commentary, Philemon, pp. 160 f., marshals the conclusions of scholars and the arguments for each view.

9 If the reference to bonds is to be taken literally, it would appear that the imprisonment was much more probably one of the frequent and less serious detentions which Paul mentions in 2 Cor. 11, 23. The Ephesian imprisonment proposed by Deissmann would fit into the picture sketched by the epistle very nicely. See Light from the Ancient East, 1927, pp. 237 ff.